FILM 1479: THE KID

TRIVIA: For the scene in which the Kid is taken from the Tramp and nearly carted away to a workhouse, Charles Chaplin stated in his autobiography that the young Jackie Coogan was made to cry by his father, who told him that if he would not cry in the scene, he would be sent to an actual workhouse.

The production company tried to cheat Charles Chaplin by paying him for this six-reel film what they would ordinarily pay him for a two-reel film, which was about $500,000. Chaplin took the unassembled film out of state until the company agreed to the $1.5 million he was supposed to be paid, plus half the surplus profits on rentals, along with reversion of the film to him after five years on the rental market.

Jackie Coogan, who plays the adorable "Kid," grew up to be the extremely weird "Uncle Fester" on the beloved '60s sitcom The Addams Family (1964).

The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second, or third, generation (or more) copies of the film.

FILM 1336: RAN

TRIVIA: Akira Kurosawa's wife of 39 years, Yôko Yaguchi, died during the production of this film. Kurosawa halted filming for just one day to mourn before resuming work on the picture.

Several hundred costumes were all created by hand. This process took two years to complete.

Akira Kurosawa referred to his previous film, Kagemusha (1980), as a "dress rehearsal" for this film. He spent ten years storyboarding every shot in the film as paintings. The resulting collection of images was published with the screenplay.

"Ran," generally translated from the Japanese, means "chaos" or "revolt."

A scene which required an entire field to be sprayed gold was filmed but left out of the final film during editing.

FILM 1207: INFERNAL AFFAIRS

TRIVIA: The psychiatrist's name, "Lee Sum Yee", is a homophone (in Cantonese) for "your psychiatrist".

When Yan and SP Wong are waiting at the elevator, the digital floor counter skips the 4th floor. In China and Hong Kong, the number 4 is considered bad luck because it sounds similar to the word 'death'.

FILM 1200: THE WILD BUNCH

TRIVIA: There were not enough uniforms for all of the stunt people and extras in the gun battle. If someone was filmed getting shot, the costume people would repair a uniform by washing off the fake blood, taping and painting over the bullet holes, drying the paint and sending either the same or a different performer out to get shot again.

According to Harrigan, Thornton is Pike's Judas goat. A Judas goat is an animal trained to lead others into a slaughterhouse. Its life is spared as it "betrays" its own kind.

Robert Ryan's incessant complaints about not receiving top billing so annoyed director Sam Peckinpah that he decided to "punish" him. In the opening credits, after freezing the screen on closeups of William Holden's and Ernest Borgnine's faces while listing them, Peckinpah froze the scene on several horses' rear ends as Ryan was listed.

"Mapache" means "raccoon", in Spanish.